


How to Spook in Seven Days

by cobwebcorner



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce gets a cameo, Crows, Mad Science, Needles, Nightmares, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), scarecrow week, ships are only implied - Freeform, terrible people being terrible friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 08:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobwebcorner/pseuds/cobwebcorner
Summary: This is a collection of all my entries for Scarecrow Week over on Tumblr.Featuring: Jonathan Crane being a terrible back alley psychiatrist, Edward Nigma failing to learn it's a bad idea to spend the night at Jon's house, ridiculous occult nonsense, Arkham's terrible security, nightmarish nightmare research, how one supervillain's relationship with crows changes as he matures, and why we don't brag about our Everest trip in front of the new psychology teacher.





	1. Day 1: Phobias and Fears

It sounded like the opening of a horror movie: a nervous young man dashing down a narrow alley on a dark and stormy night, his coat collar drawn close around his face, eyes wide and shifty. This was a part of town you wouldn’t want to walk through even in the middle of the day, the kind of place even the police wouldn’t venture without a full SWAT team behind them. Three months ago Daniel wouldn’t have come anywhere near this neighborhood even if you paid him. Desperation was a powerful motivator.

The alley appeared to be deserted. Rain collected in puddles with soaked garbage and an unsavory looking dark red-brown stain which splattered up the side of one building. Daniel swallowed and averted his eyes before the sight could fully register. His hands shook from something other than cold.

This was why he was here, he reminded himself. Alex wanted him to get better, and the story he’d told, while sounding like a bullshit urban legend, was the closest thing to hope he had had in months. And that was what led a helpless young man down a filthy alley in the middle of the night: hope, one of the most insidious forces in the universe. If Alex hadn’t been his best friend since 3rd grade, he’d think the man was trying to get him killed.

Halfway down the alley, he found the door with a little crow carved near its handle, just as Alex had said. Daniel took in a deep, bracing lungful of rancid alley air.

“I-I need…” his voice cracked. He tried again. “I need therapy!” he announced to the alley.

A cat jumped out from a pile of boxes at the other end of the alley and slunk off.

“I need therapy?” His voice rose to a questioning squeak.

Silence, except for the patter of rain and the distant commotion of the city. And then–footsteps. Not from the door, from the street. A figure rounded the corner, a man-shaped silhouette backlit by the streetlights. He walked with slow, steady purpose, and the object in his hand glinted like a blade.

Something else rustled the mound of cardboard boxes, though the cat was long gone.

Daniel backed up against the door. His heart pounded in his chest. Trapped between the known threat and the unknown danger, he stood still and trembled, certain his life was about to end. The whole enterprise had been doomed from the start, and he should never have left his apartment.

The approaching shadow froze as if petrified. The glint dropped from his hand, and he turned and ran. Just then the young man noticed the hiss of breathing behind him, and the cool air brushing his back instead of the door. He turned around.

“The Scarecrow is out of Arkham,” Alex had told him.

The Scarecrow was aptly named. Daniel had read the newspaper articles and seen the TV reports, yet none of them had done the costume justice. He really looked like he’d been stitched together by a morbid farmer somewhere and had crawled right out of the field. He held a scythe in one hand, and wore a gas mask underneath a wig of straw and a broad, floppy hat.

The stories were real, and now that he had gotten what he wished for, Daniel almost wanted to have the man with the knife back instead.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Please, step into my office,” Scarecrow spoke in a low rasp, distorted by his mask. He stepped to one side and gestured with one long, lean arm for Daniel to enter. His nails were at least an inch long, and filed into points.

The Scarecrow led him to a cramped room with two chairs and an examination table straight out of Frankenstein. Daniel eyed the table’s thick leather restraints with misgiving, but the Scarecrow did not direct him to sit there. Instead, they sat across from each other in the two chairs. The supervillain exchanged his scythe for a notebook.

“First, what is your name?”

“Daniel Mayfair.”

He scribbled this down.

“And what are you hoping to achieve through our time together?”

“Well. You see, I’m a med student up at Gotham U. I’m studying to become a surgeon. But–I–I’m afraid of blood.”

He waited for the usual incredulity and mocking. ‘Why become a surgeon if you can’t stand blood?’ they always asked. Yet the Scarecrow made no comment, only wrote some more in his book.

Daniel had been so certain he could overcome it. With enough exposure, with time, he thought he would stop feeling sick at the sight of blood. Yet, it had only gotten worse. Thousands of dollars of student loan debt later, he still came out of most classes a trembling, hyperventilating mess. It was lucky he hadn’t fainted yet. Maybe it was stupid of him to press on as he had. Yet, why should he have to let one stupid little phobia prevent him from becoming what he had always wanted to be?

“I can see why that would be a problem,” Scarecrow said. “So, you wish to rid yourself of this haemophobia?”

Daniel nodded sharply. “I don’t have the money to pay for–” he began, and snapped his teeth shut before the words ‘a real therapist’ could slip out. “To pay for treatment. My roommate told me that you gave out therapy for free, in exchange for volunteering as a. As a test subject.”

“It’s a sad state of affairs,” Scarecrow mused. “Wound a poor man’s body, and there are a handful of free clinics that will treat him. But, if the wound is in his mind? The only way to get free mental health care in this town is if you’re labeled a danger to society.” He pronounced the last three words with mocking incredulity. “I do try my best to help.”

“He said you’d treated a friend of ours. Justine?”

The Scarecrow consulted his notes. “Ah, yes. And how is she around yarn these days?”

“She’s taken up knitting again.”

“Good. Very good. I don’t get the chance to followup with my patients very often.” He settled himself in his seat, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, looking for all the world like an ordinary therapist and not a man dressed in the contents of an agricultural dumpster. “Let me clear up one point of confusion. I won’t be asking you to serve as my guinea pig in exchange for us sitting here and discussing your parents. The therapy and the experiment are one in the same. My methods are very experimental, you see, and so we will both be getting what we want out of your treatment. First I have to ask, do you have any heart conditions or prescription medications? Allergies, maybe?”

“Just hay fever.”

The Scarecrow made an odd snuffle-snort noise. “You’re absolutely sure you’re not on anything? You said you were a med student. I should warn you, _amphetamines_ have a very dangerous interaction with some of my formulas.”

“I’m not on– I mean, I know there’s a stereotype but I never–” Daniel flushed, his gaze dipping to his shoes. He couldn’t force the lie out while meeting that penetrating gaze. “….I can’t afford them anymore.”

“Ah. In that case, let’s get started. It is my belief that the best way to get rid of a phobia is to confront it in such a way that the mind has no choice but to conquer it or break. To that end I created my infamous fear toxin, for which people accuse me of being a sadistic madman.” He scoffed.

Daniel was inclined to agree with those people, not that he would say so out loud. “It really works, though?”

“Like any therapy, that depends on you.” The Scarecrow stood up and gestured to the examination table. “Now, sit here if you would.”

Daniel cast the table a wary glance, looking for bloodstains that weren’t there. “I think I’m good where I’m at, thanks.”

“You must be restrained. The risk of self-injury is too great otherwise.”

He had been afraid of that. His fingernails carved nervous half-moons into the arms of the chair. Again and again he reminded himself that Justine had come out fine, and surely he would too, as long as he gave the Scarecrow what he wanted. Daniel hadn’t come this far by being a quitter. So, he complied.

He had a long time to contemplate all the foolish decisions that had led to this moment while Scarecrow fastened him to the table. Putting oneself at the mercy of a supervillain was a stupid move no matter the reason, one that could only end badly. “Here lies Daniel,” his gravestone would read, “he went to the serial killer who scared half a dozen people to death and asked, ‘can I have some of that please?’”

What else could the world expect from a man who wanted to become a surgeon despite a crippling fear of blood?

“I’m not going to die, right? And I won’t go crazy?” he blurted out. The straps had all been tightly fastened around his limbs, and Scarecrow was tinkering with something he couldn’t see.

A syringe appeared out of the corner of his vision, its contents glowing poisonous green, its needle no smaller than a 10 gauge.  Steadily, it approached his neck.

“That, too, is up to you.”


	2. Day 2: Nightmares and Night Terrors

The birds wanted in. They pecked at the windows, scraped claws over glass, cawing, cawing, cawing, the view from every portal blotted over with writhing black feathers and glossy eyes. There was something out there with them. He had glimpsed it, gliding through the mass of birds, its fingers of bone scratching at the window panes.

He ran from window to window, locking them all before it could get in. The old manor house shifted around him, a maze of rotting wooden walls and decrepit finery. The attic opened into the basement. The basement opened into the spare bedroom. The bedroom led out to a hall that looped and twisted by right angles, spiraling in on itself in a labyrinth.

So many windows, so many weak points that anything could get through. The manor was too large for him, always had been. Even the terrifying presence of his great granny Keeny couldn’t fill the space.

Somewhere, glass shattered, and the house filled with the cawing of birds. In his panic, Jonathan made the mistake of opening the door in the kitchen. It spilled him out of the house, out of safety, into the aviary. When he tried to go back, he found only blank wall behind him. There had been a door there. It was gone now.

He sprinted across the dirt floor to the door that remained. Above him, the broken wire mesh ceiling gaped open to the sky. He felt it like a wound itching in the back of his head. Any moment now they’d come swarming through, any moment now–

The door would not open. He banged his fists into it, wrenched his shoulder against it and heaved with all his might, and it did not budge. It might as well have been painted on to the wall.

That door had never opened when he wanted it to.

_“Jonathan Crane.”_

He flinched up against the door, cowered into it, hoping the wood might swallow him. In the center of the aviary stood a towering figure, a desiccated corpse with its hair pulled back in a tight gray bun, bangles and jewels glittering over the unraveling sleeves of its dress.

The crows descended from the open ceiling and settled like a mantle, a second skin, over the bones of his great grandmother. So many pointed beaks screamed and cawed from her shoulders.

_“Your existence is a sin.”_

“I’m sorry–please don’t—I’ll be good–” The pleas poured out from him, uncontrollable, like blood from a cut. They had never done any good either.

_“You must be punished.”_

“I-I’m not afraid of you anymore.” He pressed his back to the door, forced himself to stare straight into the thing that approached him. “I beat you. I killed you.”

The corpse paused, as if considering his words. The crows over her rib cage shifted and bubbled. A huge dark form burst out from her chest, screaming towards Jonathan so fast he had no hope to escape. Gauntleted hands fisted in his collar, shoved him hard against the door. Jonathan gaped upward into the cowled face whose white eyes blazed like a demon’s. Beyond it, the screams of the crows shifted into the squealing of bats.

_“Then fear ME.”_

Jonathan woke with a strangled gasp, his temples damp with sweat. The clock on the bedside table read 3:26 am. He pressed a hand to his chest, long fingers curling over the pulse point on his neck to feel the heartbeat thundering away beneath his skin. A rare hit of adrenaline sang through his veins, sharpening all the little nighttime noises of Gotham from the patter of rain on the window to the distant wails of sirens. His open lips twisted into a small, dazed smile. This rush, this nirvana of trembling and shaking and gasping–he’d almost forgotten it. It felt a little like dying, and a lot like living.

“I’ve done it.” He laughed, almost delirious with elation. “I’ve done it!”

The bed beside him dipped under a small weight. Whiskers brushed his cheek. “Meow?”

“It’s working, Phobos,” he told the cat as he sat up, the thin sheet falling from his damp chest. “The new formula provoked a nightmare. And it was so lucid, so _vivid._ ” He snatched his notebook from the side table to write down his observations before the night’s terrors slipped away from him. These were the moments he savored, that honeymoon period when a new formula still had an effect on his body.

Phobos watched with her wide orange eyes, tracking the frantic movement of his pen.

“We’re moving into the long game,” he told his cat. “My previous formulas all had an instant, acute effect, but this one! This one worms its way into the subconscious and lays its hooks out for the great beasts that roam the darkest corners of the mind–their greatest traumas and terrors. Then, when the unfortunate sap goes to sleep, my toxin will pull those hooked horrors up to terrorize their dreams. Once I have it perfected, it will be able to give a person nightmares for months.” He chuckled softly to himself. “Nightmares aren’t so hard, to be honest. We’ve known that beta-blockers and SSRIs can trigger disordered dreaming for years. I’ve isolated that effect and given it my special touch.”

His pen stilled on the page mid-word. “Of course, to be sure of its effectiveness I shall have to run some clinical trials on people who do not have a history of night terrors.” The pen tip tapped at the top of the page. Elation slipped from him as he read over the account of his nightmare.

It had been some time since his great grandmother had haunted him. Sometimes, rarely, on nights like this when his childhood traumas nipped at the surface, he wished for some real therapy. Yes, wasn’t that the irony. He would actually like some help to fix the things that bothered him. What he didn’t want was someone trying to sand off his jagged corners so he could fit back into the societal machine.

He had diagnosed himself once, same as every freshman psychology student.  Complex post traumatic stress disorder and attachment disorder, for sure. Some additional affective disorder, perhaps. A touch of an obsessive personality. Oh, he knew his own flaws.

Perhaps one day he would disguise himself and pay for sessions with a psychiatrist who actually cared, someone competent, unlike the workaday hacks over in Arkham. It was not unusual for a psychiatrist to seek therapy. One had to keep one’s own mind in tip top shape through the stress of dealing with patients. It was standard practice everywhere except Gotham, and maybe that was why so many of the doctors here went mad.

Later. He had too much work to do to worry about that now.

He took his notebook over to the desk in the corner, where a stoppered beaker of red liquid glowed softly.

“I still need a name for it. Eau de Nightmare? No, I’ve used that one. Essence of Night Terror?”

He picked up the flask, tilted it this way and that to watch the thick liquid dribble down the sides. It looked a little like phosphorescent blood. His concoctions didn’t need to glow, in fact they required a special additive to do so, he just liked the effect. It added a certain flair, he felt. Style was important in a town like Gotham.

“Perhaps…extraction of sleep paralysis? I need to get a thesaurus.” He set the bottle back down. “I’m sure the unimaginative fools who populate this city will simply consider it another sadistic torture device in the Scarecrow’s arsenal, but think of the potential! I could find out a patient’s worst fears simply by asking about their dreams. There will be no need to worry that they might be lying, or to dose them with the regular fear toxin–which is a dead giveaway when you are practicing under a false–gzzzkt!”

He broke off in a hiss as little tiny claws pierced his pajamas and sank through to his calves. He stood stock still and stiff as a board while the claws climbed the whole (long, long) way from his legs up his back, until his cat alighted on his shoulder.

“Dammit Phobos, I have told you not to do that when I’m standing,” he told the little black cat.

She blinked her big pumpkin eyes at him. “Mreowr?”

He sighed. “This is why I prefer monologing to Kraw. Come on, you dumb cat, we’ve got experiments to plot. I know I’m not sleeping any more tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phobos is black with orange eyes because if Jonathan is going to have a cat, it will be the MOST HALLOWEEN POSSIBLE CAT.  
> And also because they're cute.


	3. Day 3: Scythes & Syringes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Image and fic not related.

 

_“Sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of pox. Four and Twenty syringes, packed in a box.”_

Jonathan trailed one long finger over the row of tranquilizers, the clear plastic casings appearing soft and translucent in the light of his flashlight.

Somewhere distant, a frantic male voice started screaming about the queen of the snow fairies. Jonathan sat back on his heels, his posture stiff as an iron bar, alert for the slightest noise outside the door. More voices joined the first, the harsh tones of the night watch demanding the screamer shut up.

Jonathan set back to his work, heartbeat quickened by the reminder that all it would take was one guard looking for a spare taser to ruin this whole expedition. The tension cleared his head.

Working quickly, he pulled a few empty bottles from the pouch slung around his neck. One by one he emptied the sedatives into the bottles. The benzodiazepines could come in handy later, but they were not his ultimate goal.

Once he had emptied out the whole box, several more bottles came out from his pouch. The clear liquid inside looked identical to the tranquilizers, by design of course. They would have a very, very different effect once injected into a patient, and Jonathan couldn’t wait to see the results.

It was so foolish of the asylum to keep these things behind a single locked door, where any maniac tall and thin enough to slip through the air vents could get to them. Lucky for them, Jonathan was no psychopath. He was only a humble scientist, interested in running a little experiment.

Smuggling his fear toxin into Arkham had been as simple as getting arrested with the vials hidden cleverly inside his costume. Arkham confiscated all his equipment upon arrest and then kept it locked inside the building, within easy reach for any man with enough cunning and determination.

Really, with a setup like this, the asylum was practically begging for its prisoners to escape. Jonathan wouldn’t put it past Jeremiah Arkham. That man admired his charges much more than was healthy for an asylum director.

The grin wouldn’t come off his face as he gently set the syringes back into their box. He put everything right back where it had been, so no one could notice they’d been disturbed.

He could escape any time he wanted, but why would he? There was so much work to be done here.


	4. Day 4: Crows, Ravens, and Corvids oh my!

He is 8 years old, and he has been standing by the door of the old manor for the past 15 minutes because there is a crow on the porch. It bounces about on the seat of the old deck chair, hopping back and forth over the wooden slats. He needs to get going, or he will be late for school. He can’t open the door. If he opens the door, it will see him. He’s been combing his conscience, hunting for any small wrongdoing which might summon the wrath of God down upon him. It’s so hard to tell when he does wrong. He’s tried to keep up with all the rules his great grandmother passes down to him, but they are so many, their logic serpentine and arbitrary.

“Jonathan. What are you doing, you lazy boy? Get going or you will be late,” the old woman calls to him from upstairs.

Jolted into motion, his hand jumps to the doorknob of its own will. The door opens with a thunderous creak, and the crow looks up at him. Its eye is a glossy black void. Tremulously, one step at a time, he edges out onto the porch, past the watching bird. The skies do not darken. No cloud of birds descend upon him in judgment for any recent sins. He hikes up his backpack and bolts down the road.

* * *

 

He is 18, and the body of his great grandmother rots in a shallow grave within her precious aviary. It is the last day of high school, the last day he will ever have to spend in this miserable pit of a town. He whistles an old folk song to himself as he packs his every earthly belonging into a single suitcase. First thing in the morning, he’s getting on a train and taking off, to freedom, and the rest of his life.

His childhood terror had evaporated along with his great grandmother’s blood. That very morning, he had passed the trees where the crows nested without flinching. The supernatural power he had once attributed to those birds, and to his caregiver who set them against him, has unraveled like so much old lace. They were only wild animals after all, slaves to chemical triggers just like every living thing on this earth. They can’t frighten him anymore. He has grown beyond fear.

A sudden cawing outside his window stops his heart and sends the handful of test tubes falling from his fingers. They hit the hardwood floor and shatter, spilling green fluid over his shoes. Despite every rational thought he throws at it, he cannot convince his own mind that he is not 3 feet tall again, and huddled in a dark decrepit church while hungry beaks come for his skin.

He sinks down into a crouch and breathes into his hands for a while.

* * *

 

He is 21, and a crow is snowboarding down his windshield. It has found a bottle lid somewhere, and will fly with it to the hood of his car, where it steps its delicate little black talons inside the vessel before using its beak to push itself down the steep slope.

If smartphones had been invented yet, he would be taking a video. But they haven’t, so he just watches, practically hypnotized. To see the tormentor of his childhood engaging in something so silly and playful has given him a case of cognitive dissonance so bad he hasn’t been able to move for 10 minutes.

The bird looks up at him, only just noticing its spectator for the first time. As little as a bird can emote, it rears back in an “oh no I’ve been caught” sort of posture. It abandons its snowboard on the hood of his car and flies off into the gray winter sky. The flutter of its wings snaps Jonathan back to himself, and reminds him of the cold seeping in through his badly patched coat.

“Next time I’m charging you a fee!” he calls after the bird. It does not respond, of course, so he takes the bottle lid and pockets it. His friends–if he had any–would never believe him.

* * *

 

He has been a teacher at Gotham University for less than two months, and the hour he must spend confined to his office each week so the students can find him is torture. The campus hosts a booming crow population which he never noticed as a student. His nose had ever been in his books, his eyes turned down on words, not the birds that roosted above him. Now that he’s a professor, the birds are impossible to ignore.

There’s a whole murder of the creatures nesting above his office. For the fifth time that day he opens his window and leans his body out to to suggest, in a firm tone, that the crows kindly shut up for 5 minutes so he can finish grading these papers. The crows decline.

From the doorway behind him, the soft, cracking voice of a student speaks his name like a question. He wrenches himself inside with as much dignity as he can muster, cracking his nose on the window frame in his haste. The student is polite enough not to make any comment.

A new whisper joins the swirl of gossip that follows at his back, after that. Professor Crane, that strange and intense scarecrow of a man with the ugly tweed suits whom you must never, ever ask about extra credit, talks to crows. It’s far from the worst thing they say about him, so he clenches his fists and pretends he doesn’t hear.

After a year of enduring the racket of that office and the feathered menaces lining its roof, there comes a night when the malfunctioning boiler drives him to take his work home with him. The apartment is blessedly silent. Peaceful. He spends an hour tapping his fingernails on the table, reading and rereading the first sentence of an essay. Nothing gets graded that night. The very next day, he goes to a music store and buys a CD of ambient nature tracks that includes crow calls.

* * *

 

He is 32, and has just broken out of Arkham Asylum for the first time. The many indignities inflicted by that institution are fresh, throbbing wounds on his pride, and it galls him still that they sent him there at all. One day, incarceration at Arkham will become dull and familiar, but on this day, he spends hours seething. Next time, he vows, he will make Batman pay. He will not suffer defeat and capture again. He is wrong, of course, but there is no one to tell him that.

His goals are unchanged. Control over others is the one thing he covets more than anything else, and he knows that fear is the golden path towards it. Targeting the brain’s fear response directly was the correct direction, he knows, but perhaps there was some merit in his great grandmother’s methods. The toxin alone can be too easily blocked or turned against him. He needs a trump card to hold in reserve, one that will never fail him.

The old books about animal pheromones are caked in dust and buried under fear toxin research. He exhumes them from under the floor of his old home and spends a nostalgic night leafing through their yellowing pages. The old Keeny family recipe can set a whole flock of wild birds after whatever poor target gets doused with the stuff. He wants more than that.

The campus crows are half-tame already from living among students. Corvids are notoriously difficult to train, for the average person. Jonathan cheats. With the aid of his chemicals, he will train a whole flock in ways ornithologists never thought possible.

It occurs to him later, as he stands in a field surrounded by little, hopping black bodies, that this experience would have sent his old self into histrionics. Grinning, he spreads his arms out wide, inviting several crows to perch on his spindly, stick-thin limbs.

He is not Jonathan Crane anymore. He is the Scarecrow, and he has taken for himself every last weapon his great grandmother once used against him.

* * *

 

He’s deep in his thirties, and well established as one of the “rogues” of Gotham. The discordant calling of crows rises all about him, where he sits on the back porch of a little stolen farmhouse just outside the limits of Gotham city. He has a notebook spread out over the arm of the chair, and a little laptop balanced on his knees. The process to transfer all his old research to digital is long and tedious, but, it will be worth it. Easier to copy, easier to hide, easier to stop Batman from destroying years of work with a single match.

A small weight hits his chest, apparently falling from the sky. It’s a broken length of chain, delicate and golden, glinting in the noon sun. Jonathan plucks it out from a fold in his shirt and rolls it between two fingers. Above him, a crow flutters down to perch on the edge of the roof. It cranes its neck over the edge, fixing him with one expectant eye.

He thanks the bird and drops the length of chain into the bucket near his seat. The receptacle is already half full with beads, pebbles, bits of bone, screws, stray jewelry, and all manner of the random bric a brac which crows consider good gifts. He had even been given a little rubber batman figurine once. That one did not go into the bucket. Instead, it found a place of honor inside the house, nailed to the wall above his fireplace with a switchblade.

It amuses him to imagine that one day his crows might bring him the real Batman.

He tips his head back and closes his eyes, resting them from the glare of the computer screen. The sun is warm on his skin, a mild breeze gusting in from the overgrown fields. A crow lands on his shoulder–Kraw, most likely–and cackles insistently in his ear until he consents to scratching the glossy feathers.

The Scarecrow should be an enemy of crows. It’s right there in the name, after all.

Jonathan Crane never had been one for social convention.


	5. Day 5: The Devious Professor

Christmas was the most awful time of the year, made more unbearable for the fact it came so soon after Jonathan’s real favorite holiday. All that lip service to charity and good will made his teeth itch, the cold weather ached in his joints, and the snow was just another hazard making trips outside his home miserable.

But the worst thing, the absolute worst thing about Christmas season, was the University Christmas party. 

There was nothing like mandatory, prolonged contact with his so-called “peers” to make him miss the rude irreverence of his students. He would take a million gossiping, giggling teenagers over having to listen to Professor Oshiro gush about his new beach house any day.

His colleagues swirled around him like he was a particularly gangly boulder sticking out from a stream. Not one of them stopped to talk to him. The few who made eye contact would plaster on their brightest, falsest smile and offer him a nod. Jonathan did not smile back. 

He had planted himself near the buffet table where he could freely indulge the only part of this farce worth coming for: a free meal. It was a semi-formal event, so he had brought out his best (carefully mended, decade out of fashion, bought used from a consignment shop) suit for the occasion. 

“…and sure, the coastline is eroding into the ocean. But how long is that gonna take, another 50 years? We’re not going to be around by then, right? I say the house is worth it for the view alone.”

Unfortunately, the food table was a high traffic area, and the price of indulging his appetite was having to stand and listen to his colleagues chatter. Jonathan thought about the stack of unpaid heating bills at home, and wondered if there wasn’t a way to accelerate the deterioration of certain beaches.

“So what did you do over summer break?”

“I didn’t tell you yet? Theo and I climbed Mount Everest.”

“Goodness. That’s exciting.”

“It was such an amazing experience. Life changing, really. Up there just you against nature, and I guess the guides help…” A floodgate had been opened, and Madeline went on about her trip for the next ten minutes straight.

If he was ever going to kill Madeline Adler, he would do it somewhere high and cold. It was just an idle thought. Imagining Freddy Kreuger-like ironic deaths for his colleagues was the only way he made it through most department meetings.

“It’s just so invigorating to be up there. Pictures really can’t do it justice.”

He couldn’t resist any longer.

“Everest, you said?” Jonathan whirled on Madeline, only just restraining the manic edge from his smile. Madeline beamed at him, too caught up in herself to notice anything off about his sudden imposition. Free from the trap of her attention, the two men she had been talking to made a hasty escape.

“Oh, yes, it was such a refreshing hike! Do you like mountain climbing, Dr. Crane? I really have to recommend it.”

Jonathan Crane couldn’t have afforded the equipment for the expedition, much less a plane ticket to Asia.

“How were the corpses, Madeline?”

Her smile dropped so hard it almost made a crashing noise.

“What?” she squeaked.

“I’ve heard that once you get into the dead zone, there are whole fields of fallen mountain climbers just lying around. Apparently it’s too dangerous to try and retrieve them. Did you get high enough to see that?”

“We, uh. We made it all the way to the summit.”

“Mm. So, how did it feel, coming face to face with the reminder of your own mortality like that? Did it scare you, having to step around the frozen carcasses of so many thrill seekers just like you, whose little adventures went bad? Did you see visions of yourself sprawled among them?”

She had turned white as a sheet, her face slack in shock. Not for the first time, Jonathan wished he could see another person’s imaginings written across their eyes. Was she reliving that moment, the death march across a field of the fallen, chilled by the reminder that the old mountain still had bite and took her weight of souls?

Without a word, Madeline turned and walked off. Jonathan watched her go with a vicious sense of satisfaction.

“Jonathan,” admonished a soft voice from his left elbow.

“Ah, Professor Pigeon. I didn’t see you come in. Have you tried the pecan pie?”

His old mentor gave him the old disappointed teacher stare. “I know you hate departmental politics, but couldn’t you try a little harder not to alienate all of your colleagues?”

“I was genuinely curious,” Jonathan replied, defensive. “There are so many topics which our modern society tries to shove out of view. It can’t be healthy, hiding so many–heh–bodies in our closets.”

“Perhaps. Some subjects should still be approached with more delicacy.”

“Have you ever known me to pull my punches?”

“No.” Professor Pigeon afforded him a rueful little smile. “It’s both your greatest strength and your worst act of self-sabotage.”

Jonathan didn’t know what to say to that.

* * *

Many Years Later…

Christmas had come again, and with it came the annual office party. While she could think of more enjoyable holiday activities than socializing with her coworkers, Madeline really didn’t mind the University parties. She minded them a lot less since they stopped hanging up mistletoe, and restricted the dean’s access to alcohol.

The years had been good to her. She’d acquired tenure just last year, and was set to become head of the psychology department in the wake of Professor Pigeon’s passing. She shuddered a little, remembering the moment she read about his murder in the paper. They had never been all that close, but even so, his death saddened her. Saddened the whole department. Still, it was what he should have expected, for ever associating with a creep like Jonathan Crane.

As if triggered by the mere thought of his name, a chorus of screams broke out from beside the punch bowl. People fell to the ground, howling, clawing at themselves and each other while they babbled about snakes and spiders and long falls. Then, one of the ornaments hanging from the ceiling  exploded in a cloud of green fog, followed by a second, and a third. The unlucky people caught in these clouds screamed and cowered on the floor. In less than a minute, the calm celebration had erupted into sheer pandemonium.

The front doors burst open. A towering figure, skeletal thin and draped head to toe in ragged black cloth, lurched into the room with a wicked scythe clutched in his hands. Madeline recognized the getup from the papers. This was the Scarecrow, the creature Jonathan Crane had become. He had swapped out his tall, floppy hat for a Santa hat, as one small concession to the season.

“Ho ho hroo,” he howled. “Merry Christmas.”

“You’re only supposed to ruin Halloween!” someone yelled.

Scarecrow half turned, searching for the voice. “I will _improve_ whichever holidays I like,” he said, and lobbed a little plastic skull in the speaker’s direction. The skull exploded into a green cloud upon impact with the ground, and that was another group down. Only Madeline and a few lucky stragglers were left standing.

She pulled the sleeve of her Christmas sweater up over her mouth to breathe through, hoping that might help. The makeshift filter offered little comfort as the Scarecrow’s long face turned towards her.

“Ahhh, I was hoping I might see you here.”

He approached her, the distance between them closing all too quickly with his long strides. She dared to back up only a few steps, wary of wandering into one of the spreading toxin clouds.

“P-professor Crane, please. I never did anything to you–” the plea, muffled by her own sleeve, didn’t seem to reach him at all. Her heel caught on something, sending her sprawling to the ground. He followed with far more grace, bending down on one knee so he could still loom over her.

“You never did tell me about the corpses, Madeline.” The Scarecrow hissed. The mask made his voice sound like a demon. “Do you remember that conversation? Your little trip up Everest? You know, I was just messing around at the time, but since then I’ve worked up so much genuine curiosity about it. It irritates me that you never gave me an answer.”

The flat blade of his scythe pressed up under her chin, tilting her head back. He was only holding the weapon with one hand, his other held out fingers-splayed in an unnatural way.

“We have all the time in the world, now. I thought you loved talking about your trip? Perhaps you just need a little something to loosen your tongue.”

The disgraced professor reached into a fold of his ragged black costume and produced a small pair of pliers. Madeline tried to crawl backwards, her hands skidding on the smooth tile floor, a half-sob half-scream sticking in her throat. He looked up at her, his face terrifying in its lack of expression.

“Oh, this? Don’t be so worried. It’s this valve, you see, it keeps sticking.” He rested the scythe on his shoulder and applied the pliers to some device strapped around his wrist. With a click and a hiss, a cloud of green gas sprayed from the gadget, hitting her directly in the face.

After that, there was nothing but the screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are one petty, sinister dork, Jonathan.
> 
> Don't mind me I'm just helping a friend cope with academia through the incredibly relatable medium of Jonathan Crane. Based on a real event. No, she never got an answer to the corpse question. #goth problems


	6. Day 6: Heart of the Scarecrow

“Come on, Jon, let me stay just one night?” Edward Nigma was not a man to plead or beg–not outside certain discrete rooms at the Pandora club, anyway. Still, his voice had acquired a certain demanding whine to it as he stared down (up at) Jonathan Crane.

“Absolutely not.” Jonathan folded his arms over his chest. They were standing on Jonathan’s doorstep, Jon enhancing his already unfair height by standing on a higher stair than Edward. Edward had been trying to subtly shift closer so they could be on the same level throughout the entire conversation.

“But–”

“The last time I let you anywhere near my home, I came back up from my laboratory and found all of my books organized by color and size.”

“They looked better that way!”

“And you were deep cleaning my carpet.”

“It was disgusting!”

“You even chased off all my spiders.”

“Oh, like you even care.”

“Find a hotel, Edward.”

“I–” Edward broke off, his shoulders tensing into a tight little ball. He dropped his eyes. “I don’t have the funds right now.”

“A bridge, then.”

“Jonathan!” Edward squawked in indignation. “Don’t you have any heart?”

“No, I do not have a heart!” As if he had been waiting for this moment, Jonathan clasped his orange flannel shirt and ripped it open in a spray of black buttons. “I had it replaced with a pumpkin years ago!”

Protruding from his ghastly pale flesh was a small jack o’lantern, half-rotted, with a glowing red interior. It pulsed softly in a heart’s rhythm, dripping thick bloody ooze from the gap where flesh met gourd. It all looked terribly unhygienic.

Edward considered this tableau a moment.

“Jonathan, I could play a xylophone solo on your ribs. Please. Eat a sandwich.”

When it became clear no screams of horror were forthcoming, Jonathan’s face fell. Huffing, he crossed his arms over the offending ribs.

“Why can’t you stay at Selina’s?”

“Because I don’t like playing human cat tree?”

“Aw, Eddie, I thought that was one of your favorite bedroom games.”

A sinuous black form dropped down from the roof and landed in a coil behind Jonathan. Selina unfolded to her full (also unfair) height, one hand planted on a cocked hip, and directed a teasing smirk at the pair.

“Doing a strip tease outside in broad daylight, Jonathan?” she asked, stepping up to his side. “I thought you didn’t go in for that kind of fun.”

“I am not stripping. I am revealing a horrible truth.” He turned sideways, allowing her to look at his chest.

“Wow, Jon. Have you been living off coffee and amphetamines again?”

Jonathan dropped his arms with an exasperated sigh. “Is nobody going to react to my pumpkin heart?”

“Riddle me this: I am a drum that beats without the touch of a hand.  
If a hand I do touch, then silent I stand.  
I still work when broken,  
stay locked up when stolen,  
And…“ Edward paused to think, "in fall, I am dusted into every drink on the Starbucks menu.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “It’s hardly a difficult riddle if we’re already on the topic of–” He broke off on a soft choking noise due to the noose around his neck suddenly pulling taught.

Selina chuckled softly, her diamond tipped claws sunk deep into the end of Jonathan’s rope. She reeled him down one curl of a hand at a time, until he was close enough for their lips to brush. Her free hand traced lazy ‘S’ patterns over his thin chest. Jonathan’s face took a rapid emotional journey from startlement court, down irritation lane, to highway paranoia in 30 seconds. He settled back into round-eyed shock when she dug her claws in and tore the pumpkin out from his chest.

Smiling, the cat danced back from the crane, her prize clutched in both hands. “Stays locked up when stolen? This thief begs to differ. Ta-ta!”

The two men stood and watched her whip away into the fog until long after her laughter had faded on the wind. Awakening from his trance, Jonathan looked down at the gaping hole in his chest.

“Oh,” he said, and toppled softly backwards.

* * *

Edward woke in a cold sweat and bolted upright, strangling a cry in his throat. The moonlight seeping through the window painted the spare room a gentle silver, highlighting the piles of books, the small writing desk, and the snoozing cat at the foot of the bed.

He combed a hand through his hair, winced at its dampness. Gradually, his pounding heart slowed. The dream had seemed so real. Bizarre and ridiculous, yes, yet so _vivid_. He ratcheted his head sideways to study the figure sleeping beside him. Jonathan slept on as still as death, stretched out on his back in that creepy vampire pose adopted whenever he was forced to share the bed.

It had only been a dream, and yet…

Edward drummed his fingers on his knees. He was a rational man, more than rational, a genius of the highest caliber. Geniuses were not unnerved by anything as trifling as dreams. Yet, the anxiety persisted. It itched under his skin, gnawed at him with the teeth of uncertainty, a riddle demanding an answer. Did Jonathan Crane have a heart? Still half drunk with sleep, Edward lurched forward, seized Jonathan’s pajama top in his fists, and tore it open. He had to double check; he had to be _sure_.

The thin, pale chest (unbroken skin, dry of blood, no gourds in sight) contorted with motion the second he lay eyes upon it. He had barely a moment to reassure himself that everything was in its proper place before the man under him flailed, and a bony limb caught him right in the stomach, booting him off the bed. Edward landed on his back on the carpet, where he lay and gasped like a landed fish for a while.

“Edward, what the hell?” Jonathan demanded in a rasp, accent thick from sleep.

“I had to make sure you didn’t have a pumpkin for a heart,” Edward told him. If his brain were a little less fogged, he would have played it off as a botched seduction attempt, but there the truth sat, even more ridiculous now that he’d said it out loud.

In all the years he’d known him, Jonathan had never before looked so baffled and irritated at the same time. It was almost cute. Finally he sighed, lay back down with an emphatic flop, and pulled the covers up over his ripped pajamas.

Edward gingerly rose to his feet with one hand pressed to his aching abdomen. Jonathan kicked like a mule, which was no surprise, considering his spare frame was roughly 80% leg. He carefully slipped back into bed, pausing a few times to make sure Jon wasn’t going to kick him off again. The lump of blankets didn’t stir, even when Edward’s full weight settled on the mattress.

“Pumpkin heart,” Jonathan scoffed under his breath.

“Just a weird dream I had,” Edward said.

“Nn.”

They sank back into silence. Edward had closed his eyes and was halfway back to dreamland when the bed bounced from the force of Jonathan sitting upright. Edward’s sleepy mumble of the psychologist’s name went unanswered. Jon bounded off the bed and dashed to the desk in the corner, where he began writing furiously.

Typical. The one night a week when Jon actually lay down to sleep, and that little spark of inspiration had to whisk him away at ungodly hours of the morning. Never mind that it was technically Edward’s fault. Oh, well, more blankets for him. He rolled over, encasing himself in a nice little cotton cocoon, and dropped off within seconds.

* * *

**_Experiment Log_ **

_NS type 2-e administered 10-12_

_Test Subject 42 began exhibiting symptoms 10-30, 4 am._

_observational notes: pumpkin heart????_

_analysis: possible fear of Ivy??_

_further testing is required. May try to fill subject’s home with potted plants and gourds to observe reaction._


	7. Day 7: Halloween

On the outskirts of Gotham, in a crumbling old cathedral which had been stripped of its Catholic trappings and redecorated with more occult regalia, the night air filled with terrified screaming. The gathered cultists panicked and yelled as they attempted to run from the site of their ritual. Few were successful.

Those who weren’t caught in the spreading fire or punched to unconsciousness by a certain bat-themed vigilante tried to flee through the front door, only to be grabbed by things in the shadows or incinerated by the wrath of the pulsing light orb which hovered at the top of the vaulted ceiling. Their terrified shrieks were soon overpowered by the chanting which rose from the empty choir loft, a song so unearthly it set any mortal listener’s teeth on edge.

Jonathan Crane had had better Halloween nights.

“Why is it always you?” Batwoman hissed as she struggled with the chains binding the self-professed God of Fear to the stone altar. She was bent over with one boot planted on the stone next to Jonathan’s head, her hands full with the thick iron links, training one of her little whirring gadgets against the metal.

“You think I advertise myself to these freaks deliberately?”

“I’m just saying, I’ve never had to cut Oswald Cobblepot off a sacrificial altar.”

The altar was a new development, but otherwise she was vexingly correct. The fact was, this wasn’t the first time someone had taken him for some manner of dark magic ritual. Throughout his storied career he’d been kidnapped to serve as a supernatural conduit, a human battery, a mutant hitman, and a demigod protege, among other things–something about his mantle as master of fear just attracted a certain type. It was flattering, in its way, but as a man of science he resented this brand of attention.

He also resented being tied spread-eagle to cold, rough stone in nothing but his burlap pants. This was not what he signed up for when he chose supervillainy for a career path.

“Why is it you here and not Batman?” He asked, not that it mattered to him either way. Both of the grown bats had proven equally interesting experimental subjects; Batwoman simply came with more sarcasm. And teeth. He would never get over the biting incident.

“Because _somehow_ , I’ve become the designated heeby-jeebie operative.” She said this with some resentment. Jonathan filed that detail away in his mental catalog of facts about the bat family, noting it might be a weakness to exploit in the future.

“Foolish mortals, you have no idea what’s really going on, do you?” boomed a deep, sonorous voice from the light at the top of the chamber.

“Actually, every single one of your goons on the way over here gave me a full monologue about it. All that was missing was a power point presentation. You’re the spirit of some long dead evil warlock, come to reincarnate yourself using a ‘vessel of fear made flesh’ so you can bring Gotham into the next age of terror etc. etc.” Batwoman sniped in reply, sounding almost bored.

“How little you truly understand! We are no ghost, interloper, no trembling human spirit. We are aliens from the 5th dimension, and with the completion of this ritual we will at last breach the veil between our worlds.”

The first chain gave way with a snap, freeing Jon’s right arm. Batwoman did not move to the next chain. She was too busy glaring holes into the middle distance, her eyes narrow white slits. Abruptly, she turned to the light.

“NO,” she snapped, firm and short, as if scolding a dog. “You are GHOSTS. Don’t give me any of this ‘haha it was science fiction all along!’ bullshit. This whole set up is supernatural and you’re a bunch of spooks. Just own it!”

The light was silent for a moment.

“Alright fine, yes, we’re ghosts.”

“If you’re done arguing semantics…?” Jonathan hissed with a pointed rattle of the remaining chains.

Batwoman shifted around the altar to the next chain, applying her bolt cutter to another link.

“Just pisses me off when people pretend they’re something they’re not, just for appearance’s sake,”  she grumbled.

“I’d be happy to discuss your issues at a time when we’re not about to burn alive.”

Loud moaning joined the popping and crackling of fire. From the shadows of the church crawled bent, ghoulish creatures with hollow, hungry eyes and withered flesh. They swarmed up towards the altar, reaching for the pair with clawed hands. Batwoman kicked two back and punched a third.

“If you’d like to contribute to your rescue, now’s the time!”

“Me? Oh, of course, let me just gas the _undead ghouls_ with fear toxin. I’m sure that will work!” He did not even bother to point out that he had no such toxin in reach, or that most of his limbs were still chained.

“They grabbed you for a reason,” Batwoman insisted. “I might not be a magic expert, but I’ve been doing this long enough to pick up some basics. There’s something about you that’s magically attuned to them. They called you ‘fear made flesh.’ Can’t you use that somehow?”

“I’m a scientist! I don’t even believe in magic! What am I supposed to do, keep them at bay with the mystical words of _HROO HRAA_?”

The wailing cacophony subsided, every last ghoul stopping short and flinching. The creatures trembled where they stood, as if terrified. Batwoman looked around at them all, her mouth slowly falling open.

“No way. You’re shitting me.”

The ghouls seemed to rally, surging forward once more with their hands outstretched.

“Do it again!”

Jonathan cleared his throat, let out his mightiest “HROO HRAIII!” and was rewarded with the mob shrinking back in terror.

“I don’t believe this. This is too ri-goddamn-diculous.”

“Welcome to Gotham,” Jonathan told her. “Cut the chains a little faster, would you?”

She refocused on her task, the laser in her hands cutting through metal with chafing slowness. The second chain gave way with a sharp plink, freeing Jonathan’s other arm.

“No! You are disrupting the invocation!” screamed the light. “I see you leave me no choice…”

“Go cry about it, Sauron junior–”

She was interrupted by a flare of purple light which filled the whole cathedral, turning her mane violet and overpowering the glow of the fire. The orb of light, spirit of a warlock, 5th dimensional alien or whatever it was, descended upon one of the unconscious cultists.

“I must possess this lesser vessel in order to destroy you and end your interference!”

Between the bright light and the awkward angle, Jonathan could make out little of what happened next. He could only tell that the silhouette of the possessed body seemed to be growing at an alarming rate.

“Less sassing, more cutting,” he hissed.

“I can’t defy the laws of physics, Dr. Syn.”

The light faded. The cultist had mutated into a massive wolf-like creature with feathers for fur and glowing purple eyes. It growled.

“Hroo hraa?” Batwoman tried. The creature appeared unmoved. “Dammit. I hate October.” Without apparent fear, she launched herself at the monster in a billow of black cape and red hair.

While those two fought, Jonathan sat up and struggled with the chains on his ankles. It was just his luck that his lockpicks were hidden in his straw wig, which had been tossed in a corner and was probably burnt to ashes by now. The fire licked closer to the altar, eating its way up the hanging curtains and carpets.

“Batwoman! Throw me your bolt cutter!” Jonathan cried.

“How stupid do you think I am?” Batwoman yelled back.

“Do you want me to burn to death?” he yelped, and his panic was real enough that Batwoman actually slipped the device from her belt and tossed it to him. It took a minute’s fumbling to figure out how to work the little gadget without burning himself (it used lasers), but soon enough he had one leg free.

Just then, the creature threw Batwoman out a window.

“Oh no.” Jonathan breathed, as the wolf monster turned its beady purple eyes toward him.

He lunged to the side, grabbing wildly for one of the tall braziers flanking the altar. His fingertips brushed iron as the beast closed in on him, making the brazier rock on its stand. He grabbed for it again, fumbled it again, as the creature’s growls rumbled through the stone beneath him.

“Lay back down, sacrifice. Your struggle only–”

Jonathan’s fingers closed solidly on the hot iron. He wrenched the brazier up off its stand and threw the pan of flaming coals into the thing’s face. It howled in pain, batting frantically at its own face to put out the fires in its fur.

A shink and a whistle of cord heralded the sudden appearance of a grappling line which wound tight around the beast’s neck. Batwoman reappeared on the ledge of the broken window, steaming mad and somewhat battered.

“That does it, furball. I’m getting you neutered!”

Jonathan put the laser to the final chain, more frantic than ever to secure his escape while the wolf and the bat battled among the burning pews. The ice-cold fingers of the ghouls brushed over his back.

“Hroo hraa!” he barked over his shoulder, and the hands retreated, whimpering.

The last chain gave just as Batwoman swung up to the choir loft and smacked the pursuing wolf down with a candelabra. Jonathan rolled off the altar, sprinted through fire and debris to the broken window, and threw himself out of it. He landed in a crouch in the wet earth outside, heart pounding, wrists and ankles bruised, but alive. Free. Free! And he had so many Halloween plans to get back to.

Or so he thought, until he turned around into a punch that hit his cheek so hard he spun once before he hit the ground.

“Crane,” Batman growled. “You’re going back to Arkham.”

It really wasn’t his night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Started the week off so serious but now it's just got silly.
> 
> My beta and I have decided Jon and Kate would make great archenemies, or as we call it, "2 goths screaming at each other at 2 in the morning."


End file.
